


The Real Treasure Was The Skeletons We Fought Along The Way

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Skeletons, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26197810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: Varric crashes Lace's swamp party.
Relationships: Lace Harding/Varric Tethras
Comments: 16
Kudos: 20
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	The Real Treasure Was The Skeletons We Fought Along The Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amarmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarmeme/gifts).



It starts in the Fallow Mire. The gritty, dreary, skeleton-filled bog of horror and despair. Lace can hardly believe it.

Lace is staying here long enough to fill out the map for Leliana, and then she hopes to never be back to this place as long as she lives. The Inquisitor and her party left early in the morning to head back to Skyhold after rescuing the missing scouts, or so Lace thought…

"Morning, Harding."

"Varric, hi. I thought you all left?"

"Sorry to crash your swamp party. Herah wanted me to stick around, make sure the Avvar leave you alone while you finish up."

Lace chuckles. "Sure, sure, I bet you can take on all the Avvar."

"Oh, that wasn't a joke. That's what the Inquisitor said." Varric looks mild. Lace can't tell if she's missing a joke or if she's offended him.

"Oh… kay. Sorry Varric, I didn't mean you _couldn't_ , I just meant… well, you _shouldn't_. Tea?" she finished weakly, holding her mug out to him.

"I shouldn't and I definitely couldn't. And I'm not going to. I'll have tea, but you finish yours. I'll fill my own cup."

She's still getting the impression she missed a joke somewhere, but Varric has his usual genial air, so she settles back, at ease (as much as anyone can be in the Fallow Mire).

They sit in amiable silence, just the occasional cracking of a log on the fire, or the hiss of a raindrop as it hits the kettle steaming away, or the clickety-grinding noise of a skeleton shuffling towards them.

Oh shit.

It's almost on them before it even registers. For how rich they are in skeletons here, Lace still wasn't expecting one to waltz-shamble into camp. She kicks at it to buy them some space and time.

Varric's fancy crossbow is nowhere to be seen and all he manages to pull from his boot is the tiniest dagger Lace has ever seen. He curses, a crass, blue streak in the early morning hours.

Lace grabs the fire poker, the closest thing to a weapon. It's hefty and it swings nicely. Lace bashes the thing into powder and tosses the poker aside just as the kettle starts to boil.

"Tea?" she offers again.

Varric stares. "You always that… hardcore before breakfast?"

"Only when there's skeletons?" she ventures.

Lace pours his tea.

* * *

It becomes a little ritual. Not the skeleton powdering, but the tea. Every time they run into each other at the campfire, which seems to be often enough, Lace will boil the kettle and pour the tea. Varric tells her about whatever story he's writing, she shows him the map she's working on.

"What's this?"

"Ooh, you didn't see that? I can take you this afternoon if you want, it's not far. It's some creepy old statues, older than the Avvar, I think. Like nothing I've ever seen before. Tons of corpses around there too. The lively kind."

"Creepy. I'll pass. But thanks, Lace, it means a lot that you want to tow me into danger just to see some rocks."

" _Statues_. So much creepier than rocks. Could be good inspiration for a horror story. Weren't you saying you wanted to branch out from detective stories and romances? Tea?"

Varric holds out his cup. "Okay, fine. We'll go, but you're killing all the skeletons."

"I've got my poker."

* * *

Turns out, there's enough skeletons to go around. Even Scout Darrick gets to kill a couple. Re-kill. Undead are gross.

Varric makes a couple sketches on rapidly dampening parchment. "This is actually a goldmine for ideas. Thanks, Lace."

"Right, way creepier than just rocks."

"Rocks aren't creepy in general, but yeah."

"Some rocks are," Lace says. Thoughts of red lyrium surface in her mind.

"Okay, fine, like red lyrium and that kind of thing."

"You read my mind," she says with a shudder.

"Ahh, not anything so mystical. I just hate that shit, Scout."

Lace blinks at the nickname. "Are you giving me a nickname?"

Varric stows his pen in his belt pouch. "Yeah," he says, looking up. "Is that all right? I know not everyone likes a nickname."

She chuckles and gets her poker ready to whack another skeleton as it creeps up.

"Of course, all the Inquisitor's best people have Varric nicknames. I'm honored. I just thought you'd put a little more effort in for me," Lace says, fluttering her eyelashes. 

There's a brief pause in conversation as the shambling skeletons reach them. Lace takes out two and Varric takes out one.

"Trouble keeping up?"

"Ah, Scout, I just wanted to make sure you were having as much fun on this excursion as I am. And I call Cullen 'Curly' and Bull 'Tiny'. A Varric nickname isn't such a big deal."

"Scout," she says, testing it out. 

"Scout," he agrees.

"Scout Harding, look out! Skeletons!"

* * *

Back at camp, Lace brews a sliver of tea while Varric rummages in his pack for some bruise balm he swears he has. Lace took a nasty swat from the last round of skeletons.

Varric comes up with a triumphant 'a-ha' around the time the water is boiling.

"Let me, you can't see properly."

Lace sits with two full cups of tea balancing on her knees and accepts his ministrations.

Her temple smarts, badly, but Varric is right about the balm. It smells vaguely like licorice, which Lace hates, but it starts taking the throbbing feeling away in an instant. 

"You're a Paragon," she says, handing him his mug. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, thank our friend Solas. He made it. Elfy magic."

"Amazing, now if only their Dead Wolf could do something about skeletons in bogs…"

"Dread Wolf," Varric corrects.

"What did I say?"

"Dead Wolf."

Something about that, or maybe the light-headedness from getting thwacked sideways by a bony hand, sends Lace into a fit of giggles. Tea sloshes over the side of her cup until Varric takes it from her and sets it safely on a stump.

"You know, you're especially beautiful when you laugh," Varric says. The last vestiges of laughter snap away. Lace stares at him.

"I mean, almost as beautiful as when you're crunching up swamp skeletons.""

Lace searches his face for any indication he's teasing. But he doesn't look like he's kidding… oh Maker, he looks nervous. Lace bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. "I'm frequently beautiful," she ventures.

If he's flirting, then she's going to flirt back. She's grown to appreciate having him around, and not just as someone to share tea, skeletons, and downtime with.

"I've noticed." Varric meets her eyes. She smiles. He smiles back.

A skeleton wanders into camp.

* * *

Lace is getting a little bored.

She's traipsed through all the Fallow Mire swamps until she's got them memorized.

The flirting has escalated beyond compliments and into lingering touches when someone passes a mug back and forth and exaggerated bumps and bruises that need some that elfy liniment and 'oh, I can't quite reach, could you help, wow, I'm so stiff from that last skirmish.'

But he hasn't made another move. Lace knows he wants to; she can definitely see the way he stares at her lips when she tells him some tidbit about her history or watches her bottom when they're hiking through the peat.

There's only so much more stalling she's willing to do in this wretched swamp.

So Lace kisses him, catching his arm as she skirts past him one night to head to her tent. She spins him half around and plants one on him. 

There's a brief pause where Lace worries, but Varric chases that away with a low chuckle. "Oh Scout. How long have you been thinking about doing that?"

"Almost as long as you've been," she shoots back.

"Fair enough," Varric says with that low, grumbling laugh that sends a tingle up her spine.

"Can we go home now?" she asks.

Varric laughs harder.

* * *

They're packing up camp the next morning to finally, finally leave this Maker-damned place when Varric catches her hands and reels her in for a little peck on the cheek. A thrill runs through her, like it did the night before. Like it does when he grins at her.

"When you inevitably write our story, the romance of the ages, it's going to be all about tea, isn't it?" Lace wonders aloud.

"Pardon?" he asks.

"Your stories do that. You use one thing as like, a framing device or whatever it's called. Or a metaphor. Ours will be tea, right?"

Varric chuckles. "You've been listening to me talk, Scout. Did I mention I hate tea?" He runs one damp finger down the side of her face. Lace giggles involuntarily and shies away from the tickle.

"Seriously? You've had like, a thousand cups of the stuff."

"All for you."

He kisses her again and she eagerly kisses back, pulling him closer by his belt. Lace opens her mouth to his tongue, letting it get a little dirty. It suits the surroundings, a little wet, a little dark and foreboding, somehow promising more.

There's a groan that startles them apart. They eye each other for a second, but then they realize. It's another freaking skeleton, rising from the swamp behind them. Varric swings Bianca one-handed off his back and fires a barrage of projectiles at it. It collapses back into the disgusting water.

"So then skeletons?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Skeletons," Lace says again. "In our romantic tale you're going to write. It'll be skeletons, not tea."

"And oh, Maker, what a romance this is going to be."

"Damn right. I'll see to it," she says, kissing him one more time before they pack up and leave this grey, dank, skeleton-filled nightmare that will now be cemented in Lace's mind as the birthplace of romance.

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with the title and everything spiraled from there.
> 
> Thanks to the lovely Lady Norbert for being my comma guardian.


End file.
